Conventional music notation uses a staff of five horizontally extending, vertically spaced, parallel lines. The five lines, and the four spaces between them, define nine positions where notes can be positioned according to their pitch. These positions are for the principal notes within an octave—C, D, E, F, G, A and B. There are a further five notes within an octave, each as which can be expressed as either a sharp of one principal note or a flat or another. These five notes are therefore C sharp/D flat; D sharp/E flat; F sharp/G flat; G sharp/A flat; and A sharp/B flat. These notes are represented by “accidental” symbols positioned adjacent the appropriate principal note. The particular symbol representing a note depends, amongst other things, on the note's duration. For additional notes outside the range of the file lines and four spaces of the staff, individual ledger lines are provided at appropriate vertical positions.
There have been a number of proposals for alternative methods of musical notation which will make it easier for people to read music when they are playing an instrument. A number of these use different colours which are allocated to the individual notes. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,148,414 shows what is essentially a conventional notation arrangement but with the notes being coloured in accordance with their pitch. There is a conventional staff of five lines, with the notes being assigned to the lines and spaces in the conventional manner and changing only as regards the colours in which they are displayed or printed. They colours are defined in terms of CMYK attributes but it is believed that the seven colours for the notes A to G are, in that order, magenta, chocolate brown, black, light violet, yellow/green, violet and cyan. The five accidental notes are coloured in accordance with their natural note. The overall appearance is as complex as a conventional music score, but with the addition of colour attributes.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,987,220 represents notes in a different manner. Each note is represented by a rectangular symbol whose longitudinal extent represents the duration of the note. The notes, including the accidentals, are of different colours and in the described embodiment the arrangement is A—bright green; A sharp/B flat—pale green; B—bright yellow green; C—bright gold; C sharp/D flat—pale yellow; D—bright orange; D sharp/E flat—pale red orange; F—bright purple; F sharp/G flat—pale blue violet; G—bright blue; and G sharp/A flat—pale blue green. The note symbols are laid out on a grid with seven spaces per octave, to accept respective ones of the natural notes, and five staff lines are provided on which are positioned the five accidentals. Thus, there are twelve vertical positions per octave. The end result is a large number of lines bearing note symbols, which produces a somewhat complex appearance, particularly bearing in mind that a typical composition may have notes spanning more than one octave.